A Year On, My Thoughts

Hello everyone,

Last month Jon and I celebrated a full year of me being in the US. Here we are in November, 13 months after my arrival, and I thought I would share some thoughts with you all.

Having been here for just over a year now, I have a lot more of a deeper perspective on what it means to live here, and indeed survive here. I'm going to just go through a bunch of things that come into my mind, in no particular order, but things I feel are relevant to me.

Healthcare has been the number one point of contention for me so far. When I first arrived here Jon had pre-bought a temporary policy for me, since I would need continuous cover, and the open enrollment for the Maryland Health Exchange not open yet and I would only be able to get full coverage from January. Dealing with the exchange presented its own challenges. Not only were they difficult to get through to, but the policies aren't the best in the world either. I made several posts about that earlier in the year. A lot of people asked why I couldn't go in Jon's insurance, especially with marriage being law on a federal level now. Well, that still wasn't possible, because the SCOTUS decision only dealt with the federal government. Jon's company is based in Georgia, and the insurance they use is Georgia based, too. Georgia was not a full equality state. Of course, back in the summer this year, the SCOTUS heard the case, and subsequently made it legal, for equal marriage to go ahead in all 50 states. With that, it meant full benefits were now offered across the board, not just federally. Jon was finally able to add me to his insurance, but it took several months. Not only that, I had hassle cancelling my existing policy, and at one point my old and new ones were over lapping, when they shouldn't have been. On top of all that, I do have several medical issues, and with the way things work here, even with the best policy you can still pay through the nose for the care you receive - and you have to deal with insurance companies who never seem to get anything right. With all that said, healthcare here, when you can afford it, is exceptionally good. I genuinely feel like the doctors and specialists here have tried to help me, and I really appreciate that. Regular GP appointments here can easily take an hour, which is astounding, especially from my perspective when at home you would be in and out in under ten minutes. Overall, neither system is perfect - I wish the US had more of a balance between both.

This might sound like an odd thing, but my accent also causes me problems here. I refuse to change how I speak for anyone. It's not like I am speaking with a thick Russian accent or some weird dialect nobody has ever heard of. It is part of who I am. I think that I generally speak clearly and concisely (ok, if not a little quietly sometimes though), but nobody can understand what the heck I am talking about! It's gotten to the point of ridiculous, where now I refuse to speak on the phone because no one can ever get my name right, even when I spell it out!

Doors. Just don't even get me started on the doors! I don't know why this one thing still plagues me after 13 months here, but I'll never understand why a store can't just have doors that go both ways. The amount of times on weekly basis I find myself walking into an exit that won't open is astounding. Mind boggling.

Although I obviously have Jon, and we do have some friends, I have found the move across the ocean quite hard on my ability to meet people and integrate. I will fully admit that I have never been the most outgoing person. In fact when I was younger I was deathly shy, but I feel I have overcome that a lot, and as I have gotten older I have become a lot more open about my life and who I am. I am still a very private person, but I have definitely made progress. Leaving virtually everything and everyone I have ever known behind on another continent has been a huge blow to my confidence in the social area. While I don't want to sound like I have no life, or try to gain any sympathy, I do feel somewhat isolated here at times. Maryland isn't the most exciting place in the world, and the few friends we do have in this country aren't in Maryland - some aren't even on the same coast. So that is difficult for me. I have tried to think of ways to get myself out more, but I lack a lot of motivation and I don't really know where to begin, if I'm honest. I'll find something, I am going to work on that, but I have definitely found the friendship aspect hard so far.

I wanted to make this post more about me than my observations of the political situation here, but ultimately that affects me too, and I am a highly political person. Religion in this country is out of control. Or, at least, the right wing Christians are out of control. On an almost daily basis I see and hear things that makes me wonder what is wrong with the world we live in. Why are people getting themselves in fierce rages over coffee cups? Soup commercials? Magazine covers? People in this country need to take a step back, look at their own lives and realise that they don't have it bad at all. Nobody is forcing them to believe something else. No one is coming for their Bible or their guns. They need to chill out and just stop. It drives me crazy, and it worries me on a personal level because you just never know if your neighbor or someone around you will turn out to be some right wing religious crazy person who will start condemning you to hell.

Speaking of guns, that is the one other thing that bothers me a huge amount. Again, on an almost daily basis I hear stories of yet another shooting. A lot of them are accidental too, and for the simple reason that people are morons. Leaving your two year old alone with a loaded weapon on the dashboard of your car is a disgusting thing to do, no matter which way you look at it. It's nothing short of child abuse on so many levels, but for some reason, the right wing crazies seem to think that more guns and less gun control is the answer. How many more innocent people have to die under that policy?

Some other minor things. Mail here is ridiculously slow. Cable and phone bills are extortionate. People who say "could care less" drive me crazy because that is not what they are trying to say at all! The lack of public transport - and the surprising resistance towards it - is detrimental to the environment and to people's lives.

On a more positive side, I will fully admit that generally speaking (though, like anywhere, there can be exceptions), customer service here is excellent. I always feel welcomed into stores and restaurants, and that the people working there want to help. It's nice to be able to have a good rapport with the people in the supermarket that you visit often, or be able to banter with the guy at the comic book store. And like I said above, healthcare, when you can afford it, is exceptionally good (though insurance companies need to get their acts together!).

Finally, despite the fact we went through a grueling immigration process, which took over a year to complete, we are still not done with that. We were married less than three years upon my date of entry into the US (as I imagine many couples are when they go through this too, actually), and therefore I was made a conditional resident. In June next year we have to file a petition that can take up to 8 months, to remove the conditions of my residence. Yes, another 8 months of our lives stressing and worrying, and not being able to travel overseas again (at least I'm already in the US this time, as opposed to the situation when immigrating). At this point I am not sure exactly what will take them 8 months. There is nothing they could possibly need to know about me that they don't already know. It's just another infuriating event in our immigration story timeline that we have to deal with. Of course, by the time that is all said and done and I have full permanent residence, just a couple of months later I'll be allowed to file for citizenship! Perhaps in about 3 years' time we will finally be done with all of this, but for now we have to persevere.

We are now hurtling towards my second Christmas here, and I feel lucky and privileged to be able to share these thoughts with you all. Despite the stresses and worries of insurance and medical care, religious crazies and gun nuts, and further immigration proceedings, Jon and I are still here, still together, and always ready to stand up for who we are, no matter what.

One of my favourite quotes, and one which I had a friend read at our wedding, feels relevant today, for me at least. I'll leave you with it.

“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”

 ~ Harriet Tubman

Dan.

September Updates

Hello everyone!

I wanted to share with you today some of my political observations that I have made recently on my Facebook page. I keep forgetting that I created this blog for this very reason! Today I thought about the blog and so I thought I'd share some of my recent commentary here. For simplicity's sake I am going to omit any links or photos that I may mention in these posts, so that they don't cause me any editing issues. I'll just copy the text here.

1. On Capital Punishment, Healthcare and that Boy with the Clock...

"There are so many things I want to rage about today, I just don't even know where to begin.I could begin with how Richard Glossip, a man in Oklahoma, is being executed this afternoon for a crime he didn't commit. Apparently there is NO physical evidence linking him to the scene, only the word of the other suspect! What the hell?! Anyone could say, "It wasn't me! He did it!" And of course, the way to show the world that murder is wrong, is of course apparently allowing the state to murder a citizen in return. Go figure.
Then I saw something else about Kentucky, but not about the bigoted clerk this time. This time to do with insurance and how a man who wants to be the next governor wants to backtrack on the (proven) ACA success there, and make Kentuckians pay extortionate fees to robbing insurance companies again. And of course everyone is like, "Well if they are responsible adults they should get their own insurance". Yes, because everyone has the money for extortionate health care costs in this country, and if you can't afford it, TOO BAD. Yes, let's all be a bunch of heartless morons and not care if someone needs medical attention. If they don't have the money, clearly it's their own fault and they deserve to suffer.
And then do not even get me STARTED on the 14 year old boy from Texas who got arrested at school because his teacher claimed the kid had brought a bomb into school, when in fact it was an ALARM CLOCK he had made, and was proud of. This is a young man who loves engineering and wants to be an inventor. But guess what? He has a dark skin tone and an "Islamic" sounding name, Ahmed Mohamed, so of course it was a bomb. If it had been a white kid named Josh, nobody would have batted an eye."Then I saw something else about Kentucky, but not about the bigoted clerk this time. This time to do with insurance and how a man who wants to be the next governor wants to backtrack on the (proven) ACA success there, and make Kentuckians pay extortionate fees to robbing insurance companies again. And of course everyone is like, "Well if they are responsible adults they should get their own insurance". Yes, because everyone has the money for extortionate health care costs in this country, and if you can't afford it, TOO BAD. Yes, let's all be a bunch of heartless morons and not care if someone needs medical attention. If they don't have the money, clearly it's their own fault and they deserve to suffer.And then do not even get me STARTED on the 14 year old boy from Texas who got arrested at school because his teacher claimed the kid had brought a bomb into school, when in fact it was an ALARM CLOCK he had made, and was proud of. This is a young man who loves engineering and wants to be an inventor. But guess what? He has a dark skin tone and an "Islamic" sounding name, Ahmed Mohamed, so of course it was a bomb. If it had been a white kid named Josh, nobody would have batted an eye."Then I saw something else about Kentucky, but not about the bigoted clerk this time. This time to do with insurance and how a man who wants to be the next governor wants to backtrack on the (proven) ACA success there, and make Kentuckians pay extortionate fees to robbing insurance companies again. And of course everyone is like, "Well if they are responsible adults they should get their own insurance". Yes, because everyone has the money for extortionate health care costs in this country, and if you can't afford it, TOO BAD. Yes, let's all be a bunch of heartless morons and not care if someone needs medical attention. If they don't have the money, clearly it's their own fault and they deserve to suffer.And then do not even get me STARTED on the 14 year old boy from Texas who got arrested at school because his teacher claimed the kid had brought a bomb into school, when in fact it was an ALARM CLOCK he had made, and was proud of. This is a young man who loves engineering and wants to be an inventor. But guess what? He has a dark skin tone and an "Islamic" sounding name, Ahmed Mohamed, so of course it was a bomb. If it had been a white kid named Josh, nobody would have batted an eye."Then I saw something else about Kentucky, but not about the bigoted clerk this time. This time to do with insurance and how a man who wants to be the next governor wants to backtrack on the (proven) ACA success there, and make Kentuckians pay extortionate fees to robbing insurance companies again. And of course everyone is like, "Well if they are responsible adults they should get their own insurance". Yes, because everyone has the money for extortionate health care costs in this country, and if you can't afford it, TOO BAD. Yes, let's all be a bunch of heartless morons and not care if someone needs medical attention. If they don't have the money, clearly it's their own fault and they deserve to suffer.And then do not even get me STARTED on the 14 year old boy from Texas who got arrested at school because his teacher claimed the kid had brought a bomb into school, when in fact it was an ALARM CLOCK he had made, and was proud of. This is a young man who loves engineering and wants to be an inventor. But guess what? He has a dark skin tone and an "Islamic" sounding name, Ahmed Mohamed, so of course it was a bomb. If it had been a white kid named Josh, nobody would have batted an eye."

2. On that Bigoted Woman from Kentucky

"So the Kim Davis saga goes on and on, and while I'm tired of hearing about it when there are many other huge issues happening in the world, I had to share this quote from George Takei."The First Amendment has two clauses that are relevant here. One is the Establishment Clause, and the other is the Prohibition Clause. Congress may not prohibit free worship, and that is what so many claim, wrongly, is being violated. But it is also not empowered to establish any religion, nor to enact any laws favoring one religion over the other. Permitting a state employee to foist her religion upon others, denying them a fundamental right as articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell, would be to give government, through this agent, the power to impose religious doctrine and viewpoint. That it cannot do. Ms. Davis is in effect establishing religion by using her governmental powers to impose her religious views."And for those who don't understand still, let's throw in a quote from one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence, Founding Father and 3rd President, Thomas Jefferson:"[T]heir legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

3. On the Refugee Crisis in Europe, and Around the World

"We have been all so caught up with the petty minds of the right wing who think their religious freedoms are being trampled upon for having to follow federal law, that we forget that outside of this bubble filled with money, fast cars, apartments, organic groceries and fashionable clothes, there is a dark and horrific world that others are trying to escape, only to be turned away, and treated like criminals. The images below are just what I found on Google of Syria recently, but if you were living like this, wouldn't you also be trying to escape, not just for a better life, but FOR your life? That human beings in this world are being forced to live in these tragic conditions is heartbreaking, and as a race, as a community, we need to do something to help them all. I don't care if you're worried that your taxes might go up by a measly couple of dollars for government aid, we have a responsibility to treat these people with compassion and respect. So while civil rights at home are important, let's not forget that while we're sitting here worried about one bigot's religious piety, there are people in this world who are desperate for real help."

4. On the Importance of Planned Parenthood

"I'm posting on FB, so it must be rant time! I have seen a lot of people posting about the apparent horrors of Planned Parenthood and abortion. Let's be clear on a few things here.First of all, all of these videos in question are heavily edited, and sometimes the owners of the voices of the people in them are not seen.Second, people are apparently outraged at the selling of baby body parts. I keep seeing posts about "genocide" and murder". These fetuses have not been born yet. Most states in this country have an abortion term limit that is less (in some cases much less) than 25 weeks. At 25 weeks, for example, an unborn baby does not yet have lungs and taste buds are still developing. Nobody is murdering anyone. This unborn baby cannot yet sustain its own life. These body parts that are being sold, are sent to research companies. People aren't walking into a store and picking up two baby legs for lunch. Get a grip.
Third, to be saying that these women are whores and need to keep their legs closed, or use birth control, is outrageous and simply not acceptable. Rape happens. Mistakes happen. Yet I constantly - and I MEAN constantly - see idiots saying women should keep their legs closed. Perhaps men need to stop forcing themselves on women. And perhaps we should have some compassion for unplanned events in someone's life.
Fourth, everyone who is outraged at the government funding of Planned Parenthood needs to get a reality check and look at the facts. I will provide links to factual sources in the comments below, but PP was granted approximately $528.4 million by the Federal government in 2014. According to the IRS, there were 144,928,472 Federal Tax returns filed in 2012. Simple calculations tell me that is a single tax payer cost of $3.65 for a year, to help other human beings in need. If you are freaking out because your $4 is going to help someone in desperate need of help, then you have serious issues and I cannot be friends with you.
Finally, it goes without saying that I should not even have to mention all of this. Ultimately, a woman should have the right to choose what happens with her own body. End of story. So everyone please shut the hell up, and if you don't like it, get off my page. Thanks.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Dan.

June Updates

Hello everyone,

I realise it’s been awhile since I updated this blog, for which I apologise. It actually has not gone unthought of in recent weeks though. I have wanted to post things here, but of course, as always, life gets in the way. Jon and I travel a lot which doesn’t do much for having time to blog, and then of course I don’t always feel in the mood when I do have time. Anyway, here we are.

It is now June and I have been in the United States for just over eight months now. I feel more settled than I did when I wrote about my feelings a awhile back, but there are still things that bug me sometimes.

One of the biggest problems for me right now is feeling a little disconnected from everything. I still don’t really feel as though the town where we live is my “forever home”. Last night I was having a conversation with Jon about where we really want to be living, and honestly, there was no real definite answer from either of us. I’m thirty now, and Jon is forty-one, and while we aren’t old, we are getting to the point in our lives where I personally think we should be considering where we want to be and where we want to settle permanently. I don’t mean moving out of the US again; heck it took enough to get me here. But do we really belong here, in Maryland? The United States is so vast, and so diverse, it’s pretty daunting to ponder.

Some of our thoughts were the West Coast, in particular California. With that comes innumerable problems, including drought, earthquakes and it being significantly further away from family and friends. On the plus side, they have the good weather and Disneyland - one of our favourite places - is right there. Oregon and Washington are pretty and offer a more laid back lifestyle, and Jon said he loves Seattle, but they are even further away from anywhere else, and the weather in those northern regions is colder than my ideal climate. We don’t really want to live anywhere in the Midwest. I’d be bored senseless without the coastline attractions and the ease of access to other places (ok, I know there are roads and airports, but living in the middle of no where Nebraska or Wyoming doesn’t really appeal as much as northern California, for example). Then we come to the East Coast. Boston and New England are very pretty and are well connected to the other major East Coast cities, but the winters can be harsh. The Carolinas and Georgia don’t really appeal to us, but then we come to Florida. The Sunshine State. Walt Disney World and many other attractions close by, the weather. Sounds perfect for us, right? Well, when the weather is close to 40C in July and August and the humidity is over 80 or 90%, it doesn’t sound so appealing. Mix into that hurricane season and the potential for flooding due to global warming, and we are back at square one.

So, with few natural disasters, and the not-quite-so extremes in weather, and being close to many places on the East Coast (including DC, Philly, Hershey, New York and Baltimore, to name but a few), Maryland seems to be the logical place to stay. We wouldn’t need to move far; we’re already here. But does that mean we want to live here? That’s the million dollar question. And we go around in circles looking at the options all over again.

Moving to another country was hard, but only because bureaucracy made it hard. Finding somewhere to live forever, where we’ll be happy, that’s much harder.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Dan.

Comparing the UK's NHS to the US' private care

A friend shared this (click to read) and being in the position I am in now, I thought it worth giving my comments. You should definitely read the article first before reading my comments.

Overall I would agree with this writer's assessment, but there are a few things that are not entirely accurate.

First of all, I'm not sure what doctors surgery he was using in the UK, but you CAN chose your own appointment. Of course, they can tell you what times they have available, and it may be "limited" compared to what you realistically want, but they wouldn't tell you "this time only".  I have already had to deal with the insurance companies here in the US numerous times, and have had to visit the doctor, and I can tell you it IS a headache. Even once you get past the bureaucracy of insurance companies, when you get to the doctor you need to have remembered your insurance card, ID, and yup, money.

Wait times when IN the doctor's surgery though, I disagree with him. At home and here in the US I can honestly say it has varied either way. It all depends on the day, the time and the doctor themselves. I think it would be inaccurate to suggest you get seen instantly in the UK over the US.  I find it interesting what he says about emergency room wait times. I haven't had too many emergencies in my time, and thankfully none in the US so far, but I agree, if I had to wait more than 4 hours, I'd be tearing my hair out.

One thing that can affect wait times in the US over wait times in the UK that he failed to mention is that in the US, everyone uses the same hospitals and the same doctors. Whether you're paying insurance or receiving medicare/Medicaid or some other assistance, you sit in the same waiting room as those with insurance. Not too many people have private insurance at home, but when they do, it's a whole other world. If I paid privately and ended up in an NHS hospital, I'd be demanding a refund from my insurance company.

Finally, on the point of cost. No the NHS isn't "free". It does come from government taxes, but it is free at the point of use, and if you have no job, no money and need care, you still receive the same care as everyone else. Even if you do work, if you make very little, you're not paying any more than anyone else, it's all relative. Taxes are by % of earnings, as with anywhere else in the world. I have never once paid for a single doctor or hospital visit in the UK, and trust me I've had many of them. I've been in the US 4 months, and I've already had to pay $30 to see a doctor - and I HAVE insurance!

No system is perfect, and no system will be so any time soon, but I do desperately hope the US can get its act together with the socialised healthcare system, because currently, it's a mess.

Dan.

A New Year, A New Dawn

Hello everyone,

I know I haven’t posted here in a long time, and I apologise for that. I have finally began to feel like I am part of the “life” here, and I am more settled now than I was when I first arrived.

It’s so hard to describe to people what it is like to go through what we did. Arriving here after all the setbacks we faced made it feel like this huge temporary honeymoon period, almost like I was in some bubble that was going to burst

For a while I would have dreams at night that I had to leave again, or that Jon and I once again had to live apart from one another. I used to wake up in the night panicking, only to realise that I am here to stay. Coming to the realisation that this new situation you’re in is a permanent one takes some getting used to. Sometimes I take a step back and think, “Wow, I’m actually here to stay. I have a green card!” It can hit you at the most random times, like walking up the steps to the apartment complex with groceries, because “this is what you do now”.

Through everything I have faced, leaving my family and friends behind has been the hardest. Some days it’s easy just to pretend that that part of me doesn’t exist any more, just to cover the emotion that I feel. Other times I feel like a horrible person for not being more communicative. You wonder if your friendships will drift apart. What will it be like when you see one-another again? I worry about my mum and my nan. I worry about what will happen as they get older and I’m not there. I do try to keep in contact with people, but sometimes I don’t always have a lot to say. Life is just “life”. Sometimes I feel like my family expect me to constantly message them, keeping them up to date with my every waking moment, when in fact I have nothing to say. I then feel bad that I am being rude, but what more can I do?

I also worry about actually living here, and how that will affect my life. Health care here is still a massive headache, and we had to jump through all sorts of wacky hoops to get me adequate health insurance, not once, but three times! It’s a long story, but it really is more than I wanted to deal with.

I haven’t yet got my Maryland driving license. This again is a huge headache, and I have been putting it off, wanting to not have to deal with it, but Jon’s car insurance is up for renewal, and I now find myself in a situation where I have to go through the endless bureaucracy to get a Maryland license. I’m not looking forward to that one.

The weather here is significantly different compared to living in the south east UK. The temperatures in the winter so far have been ridiculously low, and we have had a lot more snow than I am accustomed to (which where I’m from was quite rare). Snow doesn’t hold very good memories for me, and I have no desire to ever see another snowflake ever again. Not to mention the up and down temperatures and air pressure here drives my sinuses crazy.

There are many occasions where I still feel like an outsider too. You wouldn’t believe it would be so difficult to get used to the dates here, but my brain still can’t decipher it most days. If I’m filling out a form, you can bet I’ll write it wrong and confuse the person I’m dealing with. Talking on the phone is a nightmare. Nobody can ever understand what I’m saying. You’d think I was speaking with a thick, rare dialect. I might have a British accent, but I don’t speak that differently, right?! Fahrenheit still baffles me. I don’t think I’ll ever be convert to that one. How freezing can be anything but zero is not even worth trying to understand. Gallons versus litres, same thing.

I know all these things may seem trivial, but when you’re having a bad day, and you’re not feeling your best, and you have to talk to someone on the phone at an insurance company who requires your birth date for the millionth time, you feel like you just want to strangle them. Having to repeat loudly several times your birthday, making sure you get it the “correct” way around and that they can hear you… Give me strength.

Then we come to today, when you find out one of your closest friends has a life threatening illness, and you can do nothing because you are so far away. I don’t think any amount of words in a text message can be of any comfort. I wish I could be there in person, even just to sit there and be there.

Weather, health, bureaucracy and family emotions aside, nearly every day I have moments where I realise that this is where I wanted to be. This is where Jon and I wanted to be. This is everything we fought hard for. Nothing can break our determination to be together, because no matter what, love always wins, and I absolutely believe that. When you’re sitting in your pyjamas watching some silly program on the TV together, you realise that this is your everything. This is what it was meant to be about.

Nearly nine years ago I made a decision to change my life after having a horrific year. I went to Canada to find myself, and in the process, I found Jon too. Nine year later we are married, living together and looking forward to our future together. Never give up hope that your dreams can come true too. As James Dean once said;

“Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.”

Dan.